Days 72-77

This last week has been pretty eventful, so this post is one of my longer ones & it took me about 6 hours to upload the pictures onto it, but it was a good week for me here!

Wednesday morning I woke up & realized I was just about out of cash, in fact I didn’t have enough left to get a taxi to the orphanage. I ran all over campus trying to find an ATM that actually works & takes MasterCard. Most ATM’s here only take Visa so I had a little trouble but finally found one. I got a cab to meet the kids at chapel, but there was no chapel that day because it was spring break for the American International School where they go for chapel so I just walked to the orphanage instead. I taught the younger kids school that morning & then went to get some lunch. I ordered a cheese sandwich thinking it would be like grilled cheese, but it was just two slices of white bread with one piece of cheese in the middle. I ate it anyways & actually liked it, the oddest things taste good to me now since I’ve been eating food that I don’t really care for over the last 3 months. I ate while reading one of the books my grandma sent me about Chelsea Handler’s trip to Africa. It was hilarious. The end even had a part about her skiing at the Yellowstone Club in Montana so I could relate to it very well, not that I’ve ever been to the Yellowstone Club but I’ve been to Big Sky plenty of times & she accidentally ends up there too so it’s close enough. I finished it that night & laughed through the whole book. I finished my day with a night class & then tried to go to bed early again.

Thursday morning I woke up early for my class & got my usual breakfast on the way. This time on my way to class there was a man in front of me that kept turning around waving & yelling something that I couldn’t hear because I had my headphones in. I assumed it was to a person behind me so I just kept walking. Ghanaians walk at an incredibly slow pace so it wasn’t long before I passed him. He stared very intensely while I passed him & then began to follow me. I sped up my walking pace so it turned into more of a chase. He was carrying a bible & finally started to use words to try to talk to me. I don’t believe he was a danger at all but that early in the morning I’m not really up for having a conversation with someone who is most likely going to try to make me believe in a God that I already believe in. I don’t know why they seem to think that American’s here aren’t Christians. I’m always open to conversations about Christianity, but not the way they do it here. They remind me of the street preachers that go on campus yelling at people about how they will go to hell & need to repent & all those things. So, I told him I was in a hurry & couldn’t chat. Class went as it usually does, it was my finance class & today we were talking about checking & savings accounts. Ghana isn’t very advanced in their banking yet so I was the only person who had either of these things so it was more like 2 hours of the teacher asking me questions about them & the rest of the class half listening to us. When I got back to the hostel I got a message from my director saying I had a package in the office so I made my way back across campus again. When I set out it wasn’t raining at all, but within the first 10 minutes of my walk it began pouring rain. I had about 20 minutes left so I just decided to finish walking. I was absolutely soaked head to toe once I got there. It looked like I just jumped in a pool with my clothes on, but I had the sweetest package from my Aunt Shanna, Uncle Bob, & cousins Grace & Ryan when I got there so it was worth the rainstorm. I wasn’t expecting it at all & they very rarely come directly to campus so I was very happy that I didn’t have to go to the post office. They sent me some sweet treats & all wrote me a letter & added some extra goodies for the kids at the orphanage. I am so blessed to have a family that takes care of me when I’m so far away. One of our student guides was at the office with his car so he offered me a ride back to the hostel so that I didn’t have to walk all the way back in the rain. Class is cancelled when it rains, and I can see why. I have never experienced rain like this before. I just read & listened to the storm until it cleared up & then made my way to the orphanage. I read them books & we colored. One of the girls played with my hair the whole time I read to her. Her hair is so different from mine, I think the difference fascinates both of us. I always find myself touching them on the head & feeling their hair too. I talked with my dad that afternoon & he told me that I still have a job working for him when I get home. I was happy to hear this because I’ve actually really missed working & I enjoy my job at his office. I miss him too so I’ll be looking forward to getting to see him everyday again.

Friday morning I woke up & got my usual breakfast again. I spent a couple hours reading at the coffee place & made it back to the hostel just in time for it to start raining again. This time the storm was even more intense. The thunder literally sounds like a bomb is exploding. I talked to my roommate through the storm & then did some more reading & watched Friends. You really can’t do anything while it’s raining here so I get pretty lazy on the rainy days. Once it stopped I got some crackers & peanut butter to take with me on my trip that weekend. We were set to leave at midnight that night so I did my best to stay awake until then but didn’t quite make it. Luckily I set an alarm & met everyone downstairs at midnight, but like most things in Ghana, we didn’t leave on time. The bus finally came to get us around 2 am & we had a 7-hour trip ahead of us.

We were headed to the village built on stilts. I quickly learned that I was the only one who thought that “stilt village” meant they walked on stilts, & was made fun of for it all weekend. I tried to sleep on the bus but didn’t have much luck. There were a lot of people & not much space. I have never been claustrophobic before but I definitely felt like it on that trip. It reminded me of when we went to New York over Christmas during my senior year of high school & my grandpa would get so claustrophobic every time we got in an elevator, all his comments were really funny to all of us who weren’t bothered by it but after that bus ride I can see where he was coming from. There are also a very insane amount of speed bumps on all the roads here & they are huge. I have theory that there used to be elephants all over Ghana & then when they built the roads they couldn’t move them so they just built them right over top of the elephants. (Totally joking, but the size is about right.) All the bumps can make sleeping very difficult. Being on the bus also reminded me of taking the ski bus up to Bridger Bowl in middle school with my friends Alex & Rachel. I think I also had too many memories going through my head to get much sleep. 

 Most of the way there was lined with houses looking like this, just pieces of trees & mud holding it together. There were several villages filled with houses like this. All the pictures we see of poverty in Africa come to life here. It’s crazy how real they are.

We arrived at the beach where we were staying to drop our stuff off. We stayed in huts made out of branches & leaves. We had no cell service, electricity, or running water but that was actually really nice. 

 

We ended up all napping on the porch for a couple hours before we set out for the stilt village. We had to walk pretty far to get the lake, then we loaded into a couple canoes & set out for an hour-long boat ride to get to the village. The beginning was more like a marsh, very shallow & extremely dirty. The water was close to the same color as coffee & we all have open wounds from our mosquito bites so we decided it might be a good time to take pills to get rid of any parasites we may have collected over the last few months. I haven’t bought one yet but probably should soon. They gave us little plastic water scoops that resembled the fry containers they give you at McDonald’s to try to keep water out of the canoe. It wasn’t long before ours started to sink so we had to go through a pretty extensive process to get rid of the water & switch around boats & passengers to keep us all afloat. Once we finally figured all that out we were on our way again & it turned out to be one the most peaceful things I’ve ever done. The lake was beautiful. I’m used to being on the water with a motor going & music playing so it was a nice change of pace to be in a tiny little canoe where we had to paddle ourselves to get anywhere. 

 

The village was another incredibly beautiful & humbling experience. All the houses there were just like the huts we were staying at on the beach, all branches & leaves without many resources. They were all built up on stilts obviously so it kind of felt like we were on a giant dock that had houses on it. The children were of course my favorite. They were running around in the mud having the time of their lives. I love that the simplest things satisfy them. Most were barely covered by clothes that didn’t fit them, some weren’t clothed at all, but they were all so happy. 

This is my favorite picture. These 2 sisters were so adorable, they made me miss my sister even more than I already did. Most people would think it isn’t appropriate at our age to hold each other like they are, but we do weird things. And if I remember our relationship correctly, I would probably be in the baby’s place & she would take the place as the older sister. 

All the little kids see our cameras & yell “Pik-chaw! Pik-chaw! Take my pik-chaw!” They don’t really get that you have to hold still for them to turn out right, but they’re too cute not to try.

Their chief spoke to us & we asked many questions about the village. It has been there since the 14^th century & they just now have a school for children through 6^th grade. The children were so proud of their school & showed us the classrooms, there were only 3 of them, that are shared by multiple grade levels. I have started to get stingy with my money here because I get asked for it quite a bit, but this village seemed like a good place to make a donation so I gave some to the church & some to the school. After our tour we made our way back by boat. We left during an incredible sunset & finished the ride in the dark. We walked back to huts in the dark too & for a second I thought I was going to pass out because I kept seeing all these flashes in my vision, but then I realized how stupid I was & that they were just fireflies, which added a little more beauty to a dark walk. 

 

We had to bring our own food for this trip because there aren’t many places to get it there so once we got back we built a fire & ate our food. My friend Micah brought his guitar so we all listened to him play & the waves crash onto the beach until the rain came & we all went to bed. I slept on a mat that was about and inch & a half thick on the floor made out of branches of one of these huts. I used to be the queen of complaining when it came to sleeping on the floor at the lake & now it doesn’t even phase me. My way of living has changed so much since I got here. I can hardly recognize the way I used to live back home.

 

Sunday morning we hung around the beach until about 1:00 & then set out on our trip back home. Somehow the bus was less crowded this time, and we added a nurse from Spain who we met at the beach to our bus so I’m really sure how that happened. But we made it home safely later that night. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep & fell asleep pretty quickly.

I slept in again this morning before setting out for class. I got coffee & breakfast before class again but this time I got French toast instead of oatmeal. It didn’t quite measure up to my dad’s French toast, but it wasn’t bad. I used to love it when he would make it on the weekends. Even if I had already had something for breakfast I would still eat it. I thought about him the whole time I ate & then set out for class. I really did not like class today. We divided into 5 groups & were given topics to present to the class. My group’s topic was the legalization of homosexuality in Ghana so there was some obvious controversy between my beliefs & the rest of my groups. I kept quite while they gathered most of the information they wanted to present & then they tried to get me to present it all. I told them that I didn’t want to present because I didn’t agree with their argument & then made my points as to why. They still insisted I present, but I finally won the argument. When our presenter went up to share our information, she was asked to say everyone’s name in our group. When she got to me no one in our group knew my name so they just called me Obrani until I told them what it was. It made me a little upset that they practically begged me to present yet they didn’t even know what my first name was. After she finished, she mentioned that I didn’t agree with keeping homosexuality illegal so the teacher asked me stand up & say why, so I ended up presenting anyways with an argument that I wasn’t prepared to make. I mentioned that it has never once bothered me in the US that homosexuality is legal & that it doesn’t affect my life at all. I also mentioned that I’ve been to the castles where the British enslaved thousands of Africans & they were discriminated against for their skin color, yet they are still willing to discriminate against homosexuals for something that they did not chose. The class didn’t really listen to me so it was pretty awkward. It left me a little frustrated but I understand that I won’t be able to change their minds about it in one tiny little speech so my frustration didn’t last long.

I’m still regrouping from the weekend. I am definitely starting to wear down here. The heat & the traveling are starting to exhaust me so I think I will be ready to go home in 7 weeks. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be, but there’s really only one more trip that is on my list & then I’ll be ready to head home. It will be weird spending Easter here without my family. I haven’t been away from them for any holiday before so I don’t really know what that will feel like but hopefully I’ll come up with something fun to do over the weekend.

Love to you all,

Kasey

Days 66-71

It’s been a little slow around here since the last time I wrote, but thought I should update everyone so that you all know that I’m still alive & all is still going very well.

Thursday morning I had 7:30 class so I left my hostel around 6:30 am to get some coffee & oatmeal before class started. I’ve started to have this as my breakfast everyday because it keeps me full for a long time & gives me an excuse to get out of the hostel & go for a little walk. The place is called Coffee Cue & it’s about 20 minutes or so from the hostel. I always take a book with me & order the same thing every day – 2 iced coffees with milk & sugar and a bowl of oatmeal. Once I am either full or the oatmeal has made me too hot to eat any more of it I set off to start the rest of my day. Class was pretty simple on this day. We split up into groups to work on case studies. Normally I am pretty good about giving my input & even presenting the information to the class but here I honestly don’t know what anyone is saying through the accents so I just sat back & let everyone else figure it out. I normally hate doing this, but being the only exchange student in the class gives me an excuse, I think anyways. After class I went back to the hostel until lunch, then I got a cab to the good restaurant near the orphanage. I go there pretty often now so I’ve started making friends with the waitress that always seems to serve me. I would say she’s about my age, but everyone here looks so young it’s hard to say. Her name is Hannah & she is always very nice to me. After lunch I walked down to the orphanage & spent a few hours with the kiddos. I was starting to wonder what kind of an impact I was actually making on the kids when one of my favorite little dudes, Silas, came running up to me, gave me a hug, & hopped up on my lap. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing. He’s only 1 so he is pretty easy to entertain.

Friday morning I woke up around 5:30 am & waited until Coffee Cue opened at 7. I got some breakfast & read some more. I had finished an entire book before 10 am so I figured I had earned a nap & went back to the hostel. That night 6 of us girls went to a little restaurant called Chix & Ribs. It’s owned by a man from Chicago & definitely has some of the best food I’ve had here in Ghana. We sat around & talked for a while before going back to the hostel & gong off to sleep.

Saturday I slept in & actually slept in. I didn’t wake up until 9 & it was awesome. I got my usual breakfast & then went to the mall to search for earplugs & an eye mask with one of my friends. I knew living with a Ghanaian would be a little difficult, but I didn’t realize how much it would rob me of sleep. She stays up a lot later than I like to & likes to leave the light on. She also has a very old, loud, fuzzy TV that she leaves on until past midnight most nights. She likes to sleep half a night at night & the other half in the middle of the afternoon I’ve noticed. I can’t really do that so I thought these things might help me at night, but unfortunately they don’t sell them in Ghana so I’m going to have to figure something else out, or just wait another 60 days to get a good night of sleep. But if that’s my only complaint about her as a roommate then I think I’m doing pretty well! As babies they all spent their days on their mom’s back doing whatever it is she does for work. I don’t think that loud noises & other distractions really bother them because they are used to it. So I guess as part of adjusting to the culture, I need to get used to it too. Anyways, after my search failed we went and saw another movie. We saw Mr. Peabody & Sherman. It was a little cartoon movie but it was cute & I learned a little world history. I also got some air conditioning & had popcorn for lunch so it was a good Saturday!

Sunday I was up really early again so I went for a run & took a cold shower. I set out across campus to try to find somewhere open for breakfast, but everything is closed on Sundays I came to find out. I haven’t spent a lot of Sundays on campus because I’m usually traveling so this was news to me. Luckily I had a couple eggs left so I just made myself breakfast back in the kitchen at the hostel. There really isn’t anything open at all on Sundays so they are extremely boring. I found myself reading some more & watching 2 movies. I watched When Harry Met Sally because it is a great movie & then I watched the Parent Trap. I hadn’t seen that movie for years but it was always one of my favorites growing up. I thought about my Grandma the whole time I was watching it because we went to see it in theaters twice together when I was little. I think I must have been 5 or 6 when it first came out but I still enjoyed it just as much that day.

Monday I slept until 7:45 so I got a little extra sleep twice in the last week! I had class at 11:30 so I took my time to get ready & out of bed that morning, stopping at Coffee Cue for breakfast on my way to class again. My mom called me in a panic at what would have been about 4 am her time. She was half asleep & had the news on. She heard something about an accident in Africa & something from Montana so she was all freaked out but not to worry because I’m still alive & breathing & all is going perfectly fine here :) Nice to know she still worries about me though. It was incredibly hot yesterday so I was thankful for only having one class. I had a notification to go the post office on campus this time & they are much more pleasant there than at the one across town. I didn’t have to pay for my package & they didn’t look through it. I got a card from one set of grandparents & a couple of books from the other. I really have the best family ever! I finished another book last night & then went to bed early again.

This morning I got up for drumming & then spent the afternoon at the orphanage. We took them down for swimming lessons again & it started to cool off a little this afternoon. I started reading one of the books from my Grandma & I have a trip set up for this weekend with 7 hours of travel each way so I’m sure both books she sent will be well read by the end of the weekend. We’re going to a village that is built on stilts in the middle of a lake. When I first heard “stilt village” I assumed that all the people living in it walked around on stilts, so I’m glad I got that cleared up before I got there or else I was have been very disappointed.

It sounds like spring had sprung back home so I hope everyone is enjoying it while it lasts :) Love to you all,

Kasey

Days 60-65- half way there!

I can’t believe that my time here is already halfway finished. It has gone by way faster than I ever anticipated, but I’m glad that I’m only at the halfway mark. I believe it was about 19 weeks that I’d here, around 130 days, and now I just have 9 and a half short weeks left to go. I guess that means I better hurry up & make sure I get everything out of the experience possible.

Friday morning I had yet another package at the post office. It was a cool morning (for once) after it stormed all night so I walked across campus to get my package slip, grabbed a cup of coffee, & made my way to the post office. It was another 4-hour trip but it was car accident free & in the end I got a nice care package from my mom. I got some more granola & protein bars which I am so thankful for because I don’t know what I would do if I ran out of those. She also sent me clothes & candy. I think it just might be the first candy I’ve had since being here besides the packs of fruit mentos I get occasionally. I normally have a huge sweet tooth so I’m not even sure how I made it that long. She also sent me some anti-itch cream, which is so awesome for my mosquito bites. They are vicious little bugs. At one point I counted 35 bites just from my knees down to my feet. That afternoon we set out for a weekend trip. We spent it a little “resort” area at the beach. We were at Kokrobite and stayed in a bungalow type of house for a couple days for one of my friends’ birthdays. We had a pretty good dinner that night & then watched the drumming & dancing show. It was amazing! The dancing was very cool and they did some crazy acrobatics too. They did tricks with fire and all kinds of crazy stuff. 

After the show we talked to one of the dancers who had a little baby boy. He let us hold him and asked if we would adopt him and take him back to the states with us. It’s so sad to me that they would want to give their little angels to total strangers just so there kid can grow up in America. The states may have more opportunity but I think Africa has more happiness.  

Saturday morning we started off with breakfast. The restaurant there had actual brewed coffee! And it smelled so good. The instant stuff doesn’t have the same scent. I could have sat there with that cup all day just to keep smelling it. That makes me sound like a total freak, but I have some good memories attached to coffee so I guess that’s why I love it so much. When I was growing up I’d always wake up early & have a cup of coffee with my parents while my dad read the paper & my mom watched the Today Show. It’s such a simple thing, but I guess I miss my mornings with them now that I’m all grown up & don’t live with them anymore. It’s hard to justify why I drink hot coffee here when it’s a million degrees outside but every time I do I think of my grandma & grandpa sitting on the dock at the lake in the middle of August around 2 or 3 in the afternoon with scorching temperatures drinking a giant mug full of hot coffee. I’ve always thought that was so weird but now I’m doing it too. I guess my family just loves our coffee :)

That afternoon we didn’t do much. There were some little stands on the beach selling clothes & jewelry so I did a little gift shopping for my cousins & just hung out on the beach reading another book for most of the day. That night there was some reggae music on the beach and a huge crowd came out for that so we danced along with everyone else. It was dark but I saw a girl that looked very familiar so I started walking towards her & turns out it was my friend Brianne from back home! Such a small world that I’d run into another Bozeman person all the way in Ghana but pretty cool at the same time.

Sunday morning we got up, had some more breakfast with more coffee, & made our way back to the hostel. I took a nap & worked on my second ever Ghanaian homework assignment. I got a “tantalizing” vegetable curry for dinner from Auntie Louise & it was actually pretty good! Not even spicy. The one at the kitchen in the hostel has some spice to it but I’ve really been trying to broaden my meal choices here so I’ve been getting that for dinner every couple of days. Maybe by the end of the trip I’ll be able to finish it without chugging water after every bite.

Monday was rainy all day & it was amazing. It was finally cool and I loved it so much. Walking to class in the mud was another story, but the rain itself was great. Growing up in Montana I am used to dodging patches of ice and keeping my balance when I have to walk on them, but I didn’t expect that I’d have to maintain this same balance here in Africa. We don’t have sidewalks here, just dirt paths, so when it rains that all turns to mud and it can be really difficult to walk on if you’re not careful. Luckily I made it all the way to class & back without slipping. Class was another interesting couple of hours. We were learning about getting careers after college so we learned about writing resumes & job interviews. In the US most of us have been doing these things since we were in high school so it’s kind of crazy to be sitting in a classroom where you’re the only one who’s ever had a real job before. My favorite part was that when she explaining job interviews, she gave us this piece of advice: “keep your cool.” It was written up on the board & everything. I laughed at this a little on the inside but I guess it’s probably decent advice in the end. I did some more work for my homework assignment that night & then went to bed early.

Yesterday I got up at 6:45, which is sleeping in for me here, finished my homework & registered for my fall semester back at MSU. Then I got some dinner & got ready for class. I had to turn in my homework assignment and that was a whole adventure in itself. Printing in the library here is definitely not a simple process. It took me 20 minutes just to find a printer that worked. Everyone literally moves at snail pace here so when I was in a huge rush to get it all printed out & to class on time, they weren’t much help. I rushed over to my class after it finally printed only to arrive in a classroom where there was not yet a professor. Once he finally did show up everyone literally pushed and shoved their way to turn in their paper. You’d think that the first 10 people to turn in their papers got a million bucks by the way they were trying to get theirs turned in.

This morning I took the kids to chapel & then we had class. I taught the younger ones again today, going over a little math & writing letters. When they broke for lunch I took a cab to a little café/bakery type of place one of my friends told me about. I got a sandwich & some coffee and began reading another one of my books. Before I knew it I had wasted a whole afternoon there & finished another book. It seems too easy to get lost in these fictitious worlds, but I love it. By then it was around the time I normally eat dinner & I spotted some cupcakes in the bakery. I grabbed one & ate it for dinner. It’s not a normal dinner but I don’t see a lot of sweets around here so I guess I make a meal out of them when I do. After I ate I found a little bookstore & walked around it for a little while. They had a lot of books but I only recognized 2 authors in the whole store: Tony Robbins & Nicholas Sparks. I didn’t buy anything and then I decided to navigate myself back to campus by walking. I saw the top of the library so I just started walking towards it & eventually found my way back. It’s pretty cool when you realize you can get around in a foreign country, a whole new continent, 7,000 miles away from home all by yourself. I remember being a huge mix of emotions the day that I left. I was happy but sad & excited but terrified. Now I don’t really feel much. I’m happy here, but that’s really all. I’m just here & I’m enjoying every moment of it. I listened to whatever random songs my iPod played as I walked back breathing in the smell that Africa has (which is honestly not a very good one, although I’ll probably miss it one day) & I caught myself dancing as I walked. Then I wondered if I’d ever be able to listen to music like a normal person. Whenever I listen to music I hear it in movement. I always picture some dance in my head & I can’t help it. I don’t know if this is just a dancer thing or if everyone listens this way. Anyways, now I have to make my way to the night class I don’t feel like going to. Love to you all,

Kasey